


heavy is the head

by ArtificialFlavorz



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, F/M, Selectively Mute Link (Legend of Zelda), Slow Burn, dont worry theres a happy ending in there somewhere, no beta we die like men, postgame, your honor theyre traumatized, zelink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:49:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28490430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtificialFlavorz/pseuds/ArtificialFlavorz
Summary: What is she supposed to tell him-- that what she’s really afraid of is that she’s not sure she knows who she is without the devil whispering in her ears? That as awful as it is to stand on legs that shake beneath her own weight, it’s the crown awaiting her in the ruins of Castle Town that weighs on her most?
Relationships: Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 112





	1. before and after

**Author's Note:**

> fuck it, slow burn.

Before the war, she talks enough for the both of them. It’s not that her knight can’t speak, but rather that he prefers not to. When he does, it is in a hushed and gentle voice, a few words at a time, with each syllable afforded the same attention as the last. Slow, but not unintelligent-- detail-oriented and careful in a way that contrasts with his tendency to dive headfirst into any situation without thinking through his actions first.

He prefers to talk with hands-- with quick, fluid moments that betray the eloquence of the mind behind the slow-churning waters of his eyes. He teaches her to speak the way he does-- phonetics correlating with bends of the wrist and flattening of palms-- and she quickly learns the convenience of a language all their own, finds herself savoring the intricacies of silent conversation.

After the war, he finds his voice, and she feels as if she’s losing hers. He had to make it on his own, he explains, in a strong, sure voice that’s as alien as it is familiar, his hands mirroring his words mindlessly, it didn’t come easily, but he figured it out. She smiles and nods like she understands, but can’t bring herself to ask the question burning on her lips.

_ Why can you do what I can’t? _

Maybe it’s an adjustment period -- Purah seems to think so, taking Zelda’s hands in hers and holding them to her cheeks. 

“Trauma impacts us all differently, Princess. It’s been so long since you spoke your mother tongue out loud, perhaps you just need time.”

He watches her with troubled eyes, arms crossed, from across the room. When his eyes meet hers, he uncrosses his arms and signs a question. She pretends she doesn’t see, turning her attention back to the girl-woman in front of her.

+

Those first few weeks, she needs his help for the most simple of tasks. The shrine of resurrection allowed Link to maintain his muscle memory, if not his actual ones, and she’s been afforded quite the opposite. The images in her mind are crystal clear and in vivid color, but her knees tremble under her own weight, the time she’s spent as little more than a phantom causing her muscles to atrophy.

She stays with him in Hateno at Impa’s insistence.  _ I hear you’re having trouble adjusting, dear. Who better to understand that than him _ . 

He nods dutifully before she can form a proper protest as to the imposition, gathering her things in his arms before carefully securing them to his horse. She rides behind him for the entire journey, arms wrapped around him to maintain her balance, and they make frequent breaks. The physical ramifications of one hundred years of intangible existence leave her too weak to stand for more than a few moments unassisted, and even something as simple as sitting on a horse leaves her so tired she can hardly dismount. When they arrive in Hateno, he carries her across the threshold and up the stairs, gently tucking her into the only bed. The next day, as the morning light filters through the window, she awakes to find him seated on the floor, back against the wall, snoring softly.

He is patient, and gentle, just as she remembers him, and his eyes are just as unreadable as they’d been a century earlier. He holds her by the elbow as she walks down the stairs, helps her into the chair by the rough-hewn table, steadies the soup soon when her fingers begin to shake just inches from her mouth.

He helps her bathe, too-- when she asks, hands trembling as she forms the words, tears prickling at the corners of her eyes, terrified of being an imposition to the man who once died for her when she asked him to. He hesitates but helps her to remove the nightdress from over her head. He folds the garment carefully, pointedly looking away from the princess’ body. Zelda tries not to note the hollow, sunken spots between her ribs, the prominence of her hip bones. This is not the body she left behind, she notes glumly. She steps into the wooden tub in front of her, filled with water warmed over the stove, her knees shaking. Link watches her through lowered lashes and, though his mouth is set in an unreadable line, his eyes betray worry.

+

As tired as even simple tasks leave her, she finds she cannot sleep. In her dreams, she is haunted by Calamity, the world within her mind black and red, bathed in the light of the blood moon. And so she lies awake at night, her eyes trained on the ceiling, and tries her best to stave off sleep. 

She’s rarely successful, often waking suddenly from nightmares she can only half remember, panting in fear, sweat beaded along her hairline. 

He asks her if she’s having dreams over breakfast -- omlettes, folded together with mushrooms he picks from the forest bordering town-- and she nods, carefully taking a small bite of the food on her plate. A generous portion-- wishful thinking on his behalf, really. She still hasn’t much of an appetite.

“Nightmares?” Although the cadence is different-- more practiced, she thinks, more confident, he speaks in the same gentle voice he always has. She nods again, and he watches her, expression as unreadable as ever. He doesn’t press the matter, finishing his omlette along with the rest of hers when it goes half-uneaten.

He leaves for a short time -- he’s never gone more than an hour or two -- and when he returns, he’s got a wicker basket tucked under one arm, a wool blanket balanced precariously on top. He sets them gingerly on the kitchen table before turning to her and smiling.

_ I thought we could go for a picnic. _ He signs the invitation, a cue that there’s no pressure to exert herself with the response.  _ I can carry you on my back _ . At that he strikes a strong man pose, flexing comically. The corner of her mouth ticks up slightly, and he seems to take it as affirmative, kneeling to help her with her shoes.

+

The picnic reminds Zelda of a time before the war-- before she spent a century wrestling with the devil, when he was nothing more than a quiet, withdrawn knight and she was his charge. Before the calamity, they ate many meals together beneath the endless expanse of the Hylian sky-- baked apples and roasted bird, her blabbering on about whatever she’d learned most recently from the books that filled the castle library’s shelves as he cooked. Before the calamity, those moments were among her greatest comfort -- no royal role to play, no father to disappoint, just the broad expanses of the Hylian countryside. Even now -- with the scars of the calamity still freshly burned into the emerald grass-- the experience is comforting.

She sits on the blanket, knees pulled up to her chin, as he lays out the food - bread and cheese and baked apples - and sits across from her. She eats a whole apple, if only to iron out the crease between his eyebrows, and when he tears off a chunk of bread and hands it to her, she tears out the soft insides, leaving the crust on the blanket between them. 

He laughs and shakes his head. “One hundred years and your tastes haven’t changed, Princess.”

_ No,  _ she thinks as she watches his eyes sparkle with mirth as he finishes off the crust, never one to leave food uneaten,  _ they certainly haven’t _ . 

+

She awakens that night screaming. She can’t remember the dream that prompts it, but it leaves behind a hollow feeling in her chest and tears prickling at her eyes. He’s by her side the moment she sits up, kneeling slightly so his eyes can meet hers. 

_ Are you alright, _ he signs, his hands illuminated by the moonlight through the window. 

She shakes her head ‘no’ and reaches her arms out. A moment of weakness, unbecoming for a princess. He understands the request -- one she’s made before, always silently, always in her darkest moments. A plea to be held from a girl who rarely receives affection and even less frequently asks for it. 

He acquiesces, laying beside her so she can rest her head on his chest, one arm around her shoulders. “A nightmare?” She nods, almost imperceptibly. “Did it frighten you?” Another nod. “Do you want to talk about it?”

`What is she supposed to tell him-- that what she’s really afraid of is that she’s not sure she knows who she is without the devil whispering in her ears? That as awful as it is to stand on legs that shake beneath her own weight, it’s the crown awaiting her in the ruins of Castle Town that weighs on her most? She cannot find the words, her tongue heavy with the mere thought of them, and simply shakes her head against his chest, her tears soaking his nightshirt. His arms wrap a little tighter around her, and he breathes a few short words into her hair.

“It gets better, I promise.”


	2. haunting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sensation of his calloused skin against hers is the same as she remembers it from a century before.

He takes to sleeping in her bed. After the first night, he’s more hesitant to hold her-- keeping a good six inches of space between them at all times, though when she tosses and turns, kept awake by the memory of the devil’s voice, he takes her hand and holds it gently, the sensation of his calloused skin against hers the same as she remembers it from a century before.

Her strength returns, albeit slowly. Her legs still shake beneath her weight, but her knees no longer buckle when she steps forward. Her voice accompanies it, shaky and timid, but emerging nonetheless, words trembling under the weight of things unsaid.

She finds it’s easier to speak when it’s just the two of them -- she and her knight, who doesn’t grow impatient with the slow and careful way she goes about forming words, who smiles and nods reassuringly when she lingers on vowels her lips haven’t formed in over a century, and when she grows tired or succumbs to the increasing frustration, he is happy to converse with his hands, the way they used to across crowded throne rooms and grand hall receptions.

They practice often over breakfast-- she finds prayers the easiest, as she spent the first part of her century of solitude fervently begging Hylia for release. Conversations are harder-- she finds herself flustered, swallowing an unfamiliar lump in her throat as Link watches her with those steady blue eyes and his gentle smile.

“L-Link,” she starts, before clearing her throat and trying again, “Link.” His name comes out clear and steady, and she smiles a little bit at the accomplishment.

“Yes, Princess?” He grins at her-- an unabashed, enthusiastic expression of pride that brings a light blush to her cheeks.  _ Where, _ she wonders, teeth worrying at her lower lip,  _ is the stoic knight of my past? _

“Thank you.”

“For?”

She gestures-- to herself, to the food before them, in a vain attempt to signify the time and energy he’s spent on her recovery. He cocks an eyebrow, as if he’s unsure what she means, and she sighs, turning her attention back to the omlette before her. He always was the one to effectively communicate without words. She could prattle on for hours without saying anything, but one cross of his arms, arch of his brow, and she always knew what he meant. With the tables turned, she’s unsure how to tell him how she feels.

+

She feels like he belongs here. In this time, in this village-- the place he grew up, displaced in his chronology but not his memory.

He walks its rolling hills with certainty, smiling and greeting those he passes in the low voice she’s yet to grow accustomed to. He knows how to whistle, she learns-- a lilting and joyful sound that carries on the breeze. The town’s children have come to recognize it and often come running to the tune, bombarding him with questions about the sword on his back or the presence of fairies in the woods surrounding the village entrance. He answers their questions with a glee that matches their own as she hovers behind him, the ghost from his past that can’t seem to find someone better to haunt.

The town’s women give her tight-lipped smiles and the children lose interest when she can’t find the words to respond to their ceaseless queries and so she watches from a distance, hand resting on paddock rails to support her weight.

+

She can’t shake the feeling that she doesn’t belong. It digs its icy fingers into the small of her back at night, and for a moment Calamity’s whispers sound like the raucous laughter of children.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter this time. the last twenty-four hours have been a lot. Next update should be out soon, though!


	3. reborn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wonders how many men can remember their death.

When the Calamity is defeated, he returns home. To the house in Hateno, where he hangs the Master Sword on the wall, its faint glow illuminating the peeling wood beneath it. He trades it in for a simple Traveler’s sword not good for much more than clearing out swathes of forest undergrowth. He rests his shield outside the front door and lets it acquire rust, stores his bow behind the box of apples in the pantry and only bothers to blow the dust off when it begins to creep towards the fruit as well. 

When the devil is vanquished, he closes the chapter of his life where he played at heroism and refuses to open it again. Or, at least, he’d like to. It’s not a past easily shaken off. 

It clings to him-- a too-wet shirt on a cold day, grabbing his skin and sticking to it, the gooseflesh of memory prickling beneath the crumpled fabric. His dreams -- nightmares, more like -- are haunted by things he finds himself wishing had stayed forgotten. Blood -- his blood, mixed with that of others. Her voice, calling his name, begging him not to Let Go. Clinging to life with his fingertips and feeling it pull away. He wonders, as he inspects himself in the mirror over the basin, how many men can remember their death. He supposes it’s a luxury few are afforded.

When the Calamity is defeated and he returns home, she follows him. A silent ghost, the shadow he once was to her. Her emerald eyes still brilliant and piercing but sunken into a face far thinner than it should be. Her hands, always delicate but now _fragile_ , shaking as she raises a glass to her lips. Her sharp tongue, dulled by the devil himself.

 _I’m worried about her,_ Purah says, voice so soft he must lean down to hear her, _All that time alone._ He volunteers to care for her before the woman finishes her sentence. The least he can do, he assures her. He means it.

+

He cannot help but compare the Zelda that trembles in his bed at night to the Zelda of memory. He can see them in each other, he thinks. 

He holds her as she sobs helplessly at the crack of thunder, her body shaking with a fear she manages to tell him she knows is misplaced and thinks to when she wept for matters of state, for the father who couldn’t see past the disappointment of her failures. He thinks of how the crown would weigh heavy on the head of a girl so thin.

He tries to remember how long it took him to adjust to the world. A few weeks, maybe. It got easier when he found a tunic and pants, and easier still when the memories came back to him. Then harder when he made them fit together. Harder still when he climbed the ruins of the castle he once called home and slayed the devil with his own two hands. A chapter he keeps trying to close when there’s more to be read.

As he watches her lower herself into the tub, knees shaking, he realizes that perhaps it is easier to be reborn than to be ancient.

+

When she begins to speak again -- slow, wavering, uncertain -- she starts with his name. _Link_. It sounds nice, he thinks, not bouncing off the scrambled memories inside his head but rather hanging between them. Her voice, half-lost from disuse, sounds the way it always has: like courser honey, sweet and invigorating. The kind of voice that drives men to war in the vain hope they’ll hear it cry their name on their deathbeds. 

He calls her _Princess_ , more out of habit than formality, and she looks at him like he’s odd. He savors that look -- eyebrows raised, mouth pressed together. A look reassuringly _Zelda,_ even on a face with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. When she thanks him he is taken aback.

“For what?” What can she possibly thank him for? She waited one hundred years in the ruins of her home, watched her kingdom unravel and her people forget her name, held the devil at bay with nothing but her force of will, and she’s thanking him. She gave up her life and she’s thanking him for a few weeks and a handful of baked apples.

+

One evening, a month into her stay, she looks at him with a familiar determined expression that makes his soul feel light as air and asks him -- in that shaky, honey voice -- to cut her hair. As the blade passes through the golden sheet that hangs around her shoulders, she lets out a sigh of relief. The sound pushes its way into the space between his eyebrows, smoothing the skin beneath it as he guides her to the looking glass. Her eyes pass over her reflection to focus on his, and the ghost of a smile tugs at her lips.

“You... look handsome, you know. When you’re not worried.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case you were wondering why this chapter is so short and late, look to the wise words of smashmouth "the years start comin' and they don't stop comin'," but instead of years it's just the month of february.


End file.
